City of Thieves

This is the first book since Kurt Vonnegut that my husband all out adored. It was one I had picked up at a bookstore and told him I was going to read. Most of "my" books don't warrant much of his attention but this one caught his eye because it's by the guy who wrote 25th Hour (a movie he likes that I can't stand). I read it after him and it was nice to be able to talk about a book together. It's a journey story: two men are given the assignment to find a dozens eggs for a general during World War II in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Funny and gruesome and full of interesting characters: it was a grand adventure.

weekly geekly--fun photos

I wasn't too impressed with fun photos. Maybe it's because I have a graphic designer husband who could do all of that and more for me. He created our wedding invitations (I'll bring one in if anyone cares to see it--we still have thousands it seems) and this piece of flair to use on facebook for me. Pretty nifty, I'll say.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

"My particular passion is poison."

An 11 year old girl in England who loves chemistry and libraries? Sign me up! I thoroughly enjoyed this book--especially the chemistry parts. I know that may be a turn off to normal people but I only masquerade as one. And I must say that Flavia impressed me with her knowledge (she specializes in poisons)--and I have a Chemistry minor. Beyond all of that Flavia's adventures as she sleuths for the person who murdered the man she found in her family's cucumber garden are entertaining, and make for a great read.

Shadow of the Wind

Barbara told me about this one, and I had to check it out. Apparently it was a NP book discussion book but that must have been BS (as in, Before Savannah). A boy finds a mysterious book and tries to find more about the author (set in 1950s Barcelona). Quite enjoyable--I've got his next book that comes out next month anxiously waiting in the wings.

Weekly Geekly--Google Docs

I've been using Google Docs for a little over a year now. I do a spreadsheet with all of our food spending for the month that I collaborate on with my husband. Actually, I set it up, make him a collaborator, and then do all of the updating. He admitted he rarely looks at it anymore, but I still do. I've used it for other things too. I keep a running list of all of the book's I've read that I share with my husband and my friend who likes a lot of the same books as me but don't talk to often. Also, when Ryan and I had to send out an invitation email I set up a word doc so we could both edit it at the same time. I ended up getting carried away writing little snarky comments throughout it (such as "Ryan smells like pickles"). That didn't make the final draft. So I know Google Docs has a variety of different uses (none of mine being strickly productive, but still). They kind of sound like wikis, only for individual documents. Or at least a sound board used to unleash a severe case of the sillies.

Weekly Geekly--Tags

Tags are interesting, I guess. I first really learned about them when I set up my librarything account. I end up forgetting to on shelfari because the layout is different but I do keep it up on my librarything. I find interesting information about what I read this way. Such as: out of the 144 books I have listed 111 of them are fiction and 33 of them are nonfiction. Of the 111 fiction only 47 of them are historical fiction. So I branch out of historical fiction a lot more than I thought. It's less than half of the fiction I read! So take that, people who think that's all I read! But tags as a whole are cool. Amazon used to have user-made tags regarding their books which was wonderful when trying to figure out if this vampire/supernatural/gothic paperback is a romance or a sci fi or a suspense or a...you get the idea. But they got rid of that, as far as I can tell. Anyways, despite me liking tags delicious hasn't won me over so I'll continue to use my bookmarks in my browser (I even have them saved to a word document for when the Great Computer Switch actually happens--I know, so '90s of me). C'est la vie.

The King's Rifle

Rebecca bought this one hoping it'd be good. I helped out by reading it. It involves a group of Nigerians (along with other Africans who speak different languages) who fight for the British during World War II in Burma (after training in India). So it's very multicultural, to say the least. A lot of it is hard to follow especially since it took me about half the book to realize "Janar" means "General." Some other instances include "Samanja" ( Sergeant--I didn't figure that one out until the enf of the book), "Soja" (soldier) and "Kingi Joji" (King George). Those would have been good to know ahead of time. Beyond that it was a typical disturbing war novel--not exactly my favorite genre. It's amazing to think about what the main character witnesses before he even turns 15...

Weekly Geekly--Social Networking

Shortly after starting college my friend from high school told me I just had to get on this site called Facebook. I did, and then shortly thereafter she told me I just had to get on MySpace too. I didn't. One is my limit, and it seems that the tides are turning towards Facebook now anyways. I've seen MySpace but I don't know how anyone actually communicates on there--it's all crazy backgrounds, music coming out of nowhere and people with who knows what kind of agenda wanting to be your friend. Facebook is cleaner and neater, that's for sure. I use Facebook basically to find out which of my friends are pregnant now (with who?!?!) or what their career paths are. I've found old neighbors, former coworkers and kids I went to elementary school with. That, is neat. I must say, however, that I can't really see this as a serious forum for libraries to infiltrate. I saw those librarian apps and would never consider putting something so rediculous on my page. Do we seriously think high school kids are going to ask a librarian on Facebook? If they're on Facebook, they're not wanting to do homework in the first place. Let's leave this new technology alone--there are plenty others we can geek up.

Galway Bay

Galway Bay is based on the author's ancestor, Honora Kelly's life from the Great Starvation to immigration to America to the Civil War. The story is similar to Angela's Ashes--except a lot easier to stomach. The husband isn't a good-for-nothing drunk, and eventually they don't starve anymore. As with all Irish books, I love hearing about the folklore of the old Irish and this one's no exception.

Weekly Geekly--Gaming!

What a great thing to be caught "learning" at work! I naturally tend towards pencil-and-paper word puzzles--it's in my blood: my mom's a crossword person and my grandma could do them on her death bed in pen still without making a mistake. I have ventured into sudoku and word roundups as well. I had a few little online games I'd do every once in a while (mostly from National Geographic or something geeky like that). But my coworkers have introduced me to the joy of online games. Susie and Barbara are to blame for my new favorite--big fish games. A nice site without the overabundance of ads bordering the edges. I can see online gaming as a way to relax without shutting your brain down completely. So if that's what kids are doing, at least it's a step up from being brain washed by the TV. An even better step up would be playing a game against a real person sitting in front of you. Like maybe a nice big Cracker Barrel-like checkers board...

Stardust

I had to venture into the Sci Fi section of Borders in order to obtain a copy of this for myself. It was a bit scary, but I overcame. Stardust the movie is one of my favorite movies. And, to be honest, I liked the movie better. But it was still a wondeful, whimsical, entertaining read. Way worth the trip into sci fi land for.

The Weekly Geekly--Wikis

I don't really have much to say about wikis. I enjoyed exploring some of the other libraries' wiki pages, especially if the links worked. Our "sandbox" will be more interesting when more people add to it. Wikis are sort of like the public folders where people can post things for all of the staff to see. There's obviously some good uses for that, since we're already doing it. As for Wikipedia, I haven't had the disdainful lip curl automatic response impressed into me yet at library school. Maybe that's next semester.

The Forgotten Legion

This book really made me want to watch Gladiator again, and later 300 (Greek, Roman close enough). True to Roman style, this book is very violent. It's the story of 3 men and a woman--all slaves or at least not in control of their own lives. Two are gladiators--one was a warrior taken captive from Gaul (present-day France). Despite the description of him being blonde with pigtails (I know) I can't help but picturing Little John from BBC's Robin Hood series (AgentPaper knows who I'm talking about). My one complaint is that no one bothered to mention the fact that it's part of series! That explains why the ending wasn't a real ending! It was Fellowship of the Ring all over for me. Yet despite that, it was quite a journey.

City of Glory

War, pirates, jewels in Old Manhattan. Can't get much more exciting than that! Apparently part of series about Old Manhattan I didn't know about. I still enjoy hearing characters in the book scoff at the idea of the entire island being inhabited. And about lesser known historical events like the push for secession among the New Englanders during the War of 1812 era. What a difference 50 years makes...

Weekly Geekly--Flickr

heart
Originally uploaded by cherrycoker

OK, here's my uploaded flickr to blog photo. Unfortunately there's no easy way to get stuff from facebook to flickr (or to get the darn thing centered for this post), so I only uploaded 9. I put the few pictures I take on facebook already so I don't see the need for me to add a separate flickr account to share my photos with the people I like. As for library-wide usage I think it's cool that LOV is putting their old ones on there for people to tag. But we don't have any photo achives at CHPL...I could see individual branches having some to share between staff members (peeps anyone?) but I'm dubious about there being any legit library use...

As a side note, why is the "e" getting left out of web 2.0 gadgets? What did it ever do to blogs or pictures?

Yay Sarah, I can do one too!

Weekly Geekly--Podcasting

I didn't do the optional twitter week. I see too much potential for snarky comments.
So podcasting. This seems to have more fun potential than RSS feeds. I played with netvibes but it was waayy too intense for me. It's like be advertized to by 15 different companies simultaneously. I went home and played with iTunes' podcasting stuff and felt better. As a side note, techy husband says that it's only "podcasting" if it's on iTunes because Apple created it and everything else is just a knock-off. That's his snarky comment, not mine. On iTunes I found a few learn Italian podcasts (still attempting to learn) and a Ricky Gervais podcast. I see potential for a lot of time wasting in my future (but not until after library school though--I have no personal time until after library school).

A phrase I never thought I'd hear

"Can Target reach Wal-Mart's level of excellence?"

What is the world coming to??

Dewey

I must admit, I didn't read this on my own free will. It was a gift from a well intentioned friend ("she likes cats and works in a library so this will be perfect!"). Not my first choice of book purchases but I would collapse with guilt the next time I saw her if I hadn't read it (note: I got this for Christmas and only now getting around to it). Not too impressed. It didn't help that the author gave Dewey human emotions and narrated for him (yes, I'll narrate for an animal, but not in a book--it just sounds so pathetic written down). And it seemed that she was trying to sell me Iowa at the same time. She notes in the introduction, "Let them have the oceans and mountains, their beaches and their ski resorts. I'll take Iowa." Honey, you can keep it.

Look Me in the Eye

This is the first book my husband had me read that I actually liked. Sorry, but KV is just too weird for me. He reads stuff by the author's brother, Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors) and was interested that the older brother wrote a book. John Elder has Asperger's but wasn't diagnosed until he was in his 40s. He went around naming the people in his life his own unique names (Augusten was Snort as a baby and Varmint later on), building the most complex machines anyone had seen and being a terrific prankster. The book gives special insight into how people "on the spectrum" think. Good choice, my man.

It's about time, Virginia!

Governor Tim Kaine signed a bill yesterday banning smoking in most restaurants. Florida passed that bill a few years ago and it is wonderful. Getting asked "smoking or non?" was one of the rude awakenings I faced when moving up here. I understand the opponents' arguement of "don't tell me how to run my business" but frankly that doesn't cut it in this case because this is a health thing. Congrats, Virginia! I didn't think it would happen here due to your history and resident mega corporation throwing its weight around. Bravo!

P.S. That article says that Virginia is the first southern state to adopt this ban. I guess Florida really is just considered a territory of New York after all.

How the States Got Their Shapes

This book was very interesting. I remember asking my mom how states' shapes were formed (I got some blow-off answer, I'm sure). This book also contains lots of maps (thankfully), including some with captions like "Connecticut according to Connecticut" and "Connecticut according to New York." Obviously, they disagreed immensely. From reading this I've realized that states as a whole act strikingly similar to the people in their states. Case and point: California. Congress attempted to keep all incoming states the same relative size but with California they were concerned about it becoming its own nation (due to its size and resources). California didn't feel like going through the standard procedure of becoming a territory first (territories can have their borders changed) so they just applied for statehood. They didn't want their nice resources given to some other state (who cares about Nevada, anyway?). So Congress allowed it to come into the Union despite its smugness. Thus officially beginning California's craziness as a state.

The Weekly Geekly--RSS Feeds

I must admit that even though I'm one of these so-called "computer natives" I'm not too impressed with RSS feeds. I set up a Google Reader account but haven't used it since. I know I'm supposed to be in love with all forms of technology but, frankly, I don't see the need of this for me. I read six blogs and use my bookmarks (not even delicious, I know) to go to each one. I know, how horrible: click, click, click. It's exhausting! Maybe if I cared more about blogs and read more of them I would see the value in RSS feeds. But I'm not, so I don't. I also see the people from work that I'm following when I sign into my blog--almost a RSS feed, but simpler. There might be some of kind of value for public libraries to use this stuff once it becomes more refined. Just no value for me.
On a lighter note, here's some of my blogs:
Not Always Right (thank you to whoever bookmarked this on the circ computer!)
Dave Barry's Blog
My Life in a Cube
Early Word (an actual work-related blog--I know)

Blonde Roots

I love the concept of this book: what if Africans had enslaved Europeans instead of vice versa? Oddly enough the author decided to rearrange the world, which I didn't think was necessary (luckily they provide a map or I'd have no idea what was going on). Throughout the book I caught myself picturing the slaves as Africans out of habit. The story goes through the standard slave life events: capture, middle passage, escape, recapture, whippings, field work. It was brutal and hard to read, but quite well worth it.

Oops!

Man hides engagment ring in girlfriend's frosty. Guess what happens from there...

Dave Barry finds the best stuff online.

If I had $9,500...

According to CNN, this stimulus circus is costing each taxpayer roughly $9,500. If I were given this money back to me (since I did earn it, after all) I could think of better ways to spend it. Like taking a Rick Steve's tour of Italy: 17 days of glorious, wonderous Italy. And at the price of $4,695 (plus air fare) I could also afford to go to the British Isles later in the year. That sounds a lot more stimulating to me than giving some silver-spoon fed banker fancy drapes for his office.

And I think I would have enough left over to get Barbara her shoes without her starving herself!

Little Bee

I must admit, the book flap was what got me to read this book. It basically says This isn't going to tell you what happens, but since you need to know something in order to buy it, we'll just say this...

Little Bee has good ole quirky humor in it (which I love). It did get real serious though. And started to venture too close to the "why am I not happy when I have everything?" whining. I have a low tolerance for that stuff. But despite that, it was good, and I enjoyed it.

DC Gets State Quarter

Don't ask me how that works. The design features Duke Ellington on his piano (and is the first black person on a US coin) along with the phrase "Justice for All." I like that the mint refused to use the DC voter's first phrase choice: "Taxation without Representation." I love the irony. CNNs story.

Shannon

I just finished reading Shannon by Frank Delaney. A shell shocked American chaplain takes a trip to Ireland to find his roots in the 1920s. He meets many interesting Irish people along the way. I especially enjoyed the translations from Irish English to English such as:

"Loby, what's wrong with your hand?" said yet another to the barman. Meaning, You, barman, nicknamed Loby on account of your one earlobe, why aren't you pouring a drink for this visitor?

Welcome to the blog world, Baby Girl!

So this is what the insides of a blog look like...